Weathering the Financial Stresses in Agriculture

Another year of stagnant farm incomes are putting pressure on completing a farm bill on time, and ag lenders say the farm economy weathered financial stresses 2017 better than expected.

“We were anticipating the stress to be higher than it has been,” said Bill Johnson, CEO of Farm Credit-Mid America at Commodity Classic. “I hate to use the term ‘treading water,’ but it didn’t get a lot worse.”

At a House Agriculture Committee meeting in February, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called the farm economy “fragile.”

In the first forecast of net farm income from the USDA, farm profits are expecting farm profits to shrink to their lowest levels since 2006.

Farm Credit says the biggest challenge for them in 2018 will be with rising interest rates.